Golden Gate Fields: Baze wins 43rd meet riding title

Russell Baze won four races Sunday to claim his 43rd career riding title at Golden Gate Fields as the 17-day meet ended.

Baze trailed Julien Couton 24-23 before the final day, but won the first race with odds-on Amorously ($2.40). He also won aboard Sir Al ($8), Xcuse Me Monto ($8.40), and favored Imperative ($6.20) to finish the meet with 27 victories.

Couton was winless on the final day, but had three seconds as well as a third with his five mounts.

Jockeys Pablo Flores and Irving Orozco were off their mounts Sunday at Golden Gate Fields after suffering injuries in a sixth-race spill Saturday.

Flores suffered a severe concussion and had to spend the night at Highland Hospital in Oakland, but Golden Gate track physician Dr. David Seftel said results of a CT scan were negative, and Flores would likely resume riding in a week.

Orozco, Golden Gate Fields’ leading apprentice, fractured the scaphoid bone in his right wrist and will miss three to six weeks after his mount, Mettle Station, couldn’t avoid Flores’s fallen mount, Bye Bye See Ya, who was put in tight quarters by Diamond Geezah, who drifted in just inside the eighth pole. Both horses got back on their feet and walked off the track.

Diamond Geezah, who finished second, was disqualified to seventh, and jockey Frank Alvarado was handed a 10-day suspension to be served Sept. 23-Oct. 8.